OpenACC

OpenACC
Developer(s)The OpenACC Organization
Stable release
3.2 / November 2021; 3 years ago (2021-11)
Written inC, C++, and Fortran
Operating systemCross-platform
PlatformCross-platform
TypeAPI
Websitewww.openacc.org

OpenACC (for open accelerators) is a programming standard for parallel computing developed by Cray, CAPS, Nvidia and PGI. The standard is designed to simplify parallel programming of heterogeneous CPU/GPU systems.[1]

As in OpenMP, the programmer can annotate C, C++ and Fortran source code to identify the areas that should be accelerated using compiler directives and additional functions.[2] Like OpenMP 4.0 and newer, OpenACC can target both the CPU and GPU architectures and launch computational code on them.

OpenACC members have worked as members of the OpenMP standard group to merge into OpenMP specification to create a common specification which extends OpenMP to support accelerators in a future release of OpenMP.[3][4] These efforts resulted in a technical report[5] for comment and discussion timed to include the annual Supercomputing Conference (November 2012, Salt Lake City) and to address non-Nvidia accelerator support with input from hardware vendors who participate in OpenMP.[6]

At ISC’12 OpenACC was demonstrated to work on Nvidia, AMD and Intel accelerators, without performance data.[7]

On November 12, 2012, at the SC12 conference, a draft of the OpenACC version 2.0 specification was presented.[8] New suggested capabilities include new controls over data movement (such as better handling of unstructured data and improvements in support for non-contiguous memory), and support for explicit function calls and separate compilation (allowing the creation and reuse of libraries of accelerated code). OpenACC 2.0 was officially released in June 2013.[9]

Version 2.5 of the specification was released in October 2015,[10] while version 2.6 was released in November 2017.[11] Subsequently, version 2.7 was released in November 2018.[12]

The latest version is version 3.2, which was released in November 2021.[13]

  1. ^ "Nvidia, Cray, PGI, and CAPS launch 'OpenACC' programming standard for parallel computing". The Inquirer. 4 November 2011. Archived from the original on November 17, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. ^ "OpenACC standard version 2.5" (PDF). OpenACC.org. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  3. ^ "How does the OpenACC API relate to the OpenMP API?". OpenACC.org. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  4. ^ "How did the OpenACC specifications originate?". OpenACC.org. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  5. ^ "The OpenMP Consortium Releases First Technical Report". OpenMP.org. 5 November 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  6. ^ "OpenMP at SC12". OpenMP.org. 29 August 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  7. ^ "OpenACC Group Reports Expanding Support for Accelerator Programming Standard". HPCwire. 20 June 2012. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  8. ^ "OpenACC Version 2.0 Posted for Comment". OpenACC.org. 12 November 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  9. ^ "OpenACC 2.0 Spec | www.openacc.org". www.openacc.org. Archived from the original on 2016-04-04. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  10. ^ "OpenACC Standards Group Announces Release of the 2.5 Specification; Member Vendors Add Support for ARM & x86 as Parallel Devices | www.openacc.org". www.openacc.org. Archived from the original on 2016-07-26. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
  11. ^ "What's new in OpenACC 2.6? | OpenACC". www.openacc.org. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
  12. ^ "What's new in OpenACC 2.7! | OpenACC". www.openacc.org. Retrieved 2019-01-07.
  13. ^ "The OpenACC© Application Programming Interface" (PDF). OpenACC. September 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 29, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2023.